writing, writers, once written
i am sitting in the living room trying to put something very fast together for my writer's group meeting tonight. we all decided (the five of us) that we would try each submitting something for each meeting, no matter how small - one has written a 99-word piece, for example.
but of course, i can't think of anything! well, there is something i have wanted to write for a while, about how becoming a mother has changed my relationship with my own mother (for the better alhamdulillah), but that will take too long for something i ought to email everyone within the next hour so they can at least read it before 7 p.m. so i might just write some sort of small sketch.
ya allah - ya haqq! as irving would say :) - this used to be my fire! if someone - a professor, a friend - told me i had to write something and i could write anything i wanted - a blank page was like a gift, the mouth of a sunlit secret forest path, a turn around a corner that opened into a valley of sublime beauty, a world where anything, anything, anything could happen! how narrowly age constricts our dreams... (but it's not age, i know that, i know that).
last night i left musa with my mother-in-law for an hour and a half (and he was fine, alhamdulillah, even ate cereal and squash and had JUST fallen asleep when i got back) and went to a book reading by myself. such an alien thing to do - felt so alien to be driving at night without any little face to look for every couple of minutes in the rearview mirror, without worrying that i'm turning or braking or accelerating too hard for my wee passenger - felt so alien to be sitting in a small independent bookstore full of adults, listening to adults speak (so articulate! so poetic!) about literature and culture and american perception of the Other after september 11 and about the tribulations of trying to get published. in the car i felt so alone, not in a lonely way, just so strange to be alone, and i remembered vividly the first time i realized i wasn't alone after i found out i was pregnant, driving to work one morning.
anyway. i went to hear african-(american?) writers chris abani and doreen baingana read from their books becoming abigail and tropical fish. i went because i was in a class with doreen back in 2001 or so, a creative nonfiction workshop, and thought she was an amazing writer, and it's so cool that she was published - and random house just recently put her book out as paperback. bought it, will read it. but both were amazing writers, although whenever i interact with other writers i almost always end up wondering why people write SO much about sex and why it is so artsy and literary to do so. but, it was well done, nongratuitous, etc, so, whatever. just, tell me now, will i never make it as a writer if i don't have some sort of sex scenes in my novels? urgh.
but, God. the writers. they were funny, witty, smart people. it's like a different world. now i'm here in my pajamas and glasses. i wish i could remember what they said. especially for my writer's group tonight.
so i need to write something, now, fast. for inspiration i went to my oooooold angelfire web page, no i'm not linking it here, where i once planned to have a whole section devoted to literature, blah blah blah. this was long before blogs, by the way. i have a few poems there, stuff i wrote either in college or right after so everything's at least six or seven years old and up to 12 years old. haven't written any poems since the first year of my marriage. but, what the heck. here's one i wrote some random time, i think probably seven years ago, around the time my brother got married - no, it was after, so six to seven years ago. because it was after a late evening trip i took with him and my bhabhi to the beach at wilmington - i remember, clearly, the exhilaration of praying maghrib with my sister-in-law out loud on the beach, and then tripping in the sand as we walked after nightfall. but that's not what i wrote about... the poem doesn't mean anything, it's not like koonj's poems.
musa has managed to pull a book out of the bookshelf and yank off its cover. which he is now gleefully eating. stephen king's "on writing". ain't it strange? i never bought this book - it came in the mail to me a couple of years ago through amazon.com, but i have absolutely no idea at all who sent it to me. not a clue. but it's a great book. so thank you whoever it was. here's the poem...
at the feet of the sleeping continent,
two darknesses merged in silence:
sleepless ocean/wakeful sky,
mirroring restless obscurities.
moonless blackness starred with grace,
watching tossing seas of pearled unconscious
reach loving arms to treacherous sands
and withdraw, falling short every time...
near and far are vague and dark --
unseen earth, and water melds with heaven
on the horizon -- but here, at the shore,
the broken reach of the sea
crashes luminous and jewelled at my feet.
but of course, i can't think of anything! well, there is something i have wanted to write for a while, about how becoming a mother has changed my relationship with my own mother (for the better alhamdulillah), but that will take too long for something i ought to email everyone within the next hour so they can at least read it before 7 p.m. so i might just write some sort of small sketch.
ya allah - ya haqq! as irving would say :) - this used to be my fire! if someone - a professor, a friend - told me i had to write something and i could write anything i wanted - a blank page was like a gift, the mouth of a sunlit secret forest path, a turn around a corner that opened into a valley of sublime beauty, a world where anything, anything, anything could happen! how narrowly age constricts our dreams... (but it's not age, i know that, i know that).
last night i left musa with my mother-in-law for an hour and a half (and he was fine, alhamdulillah, even ate cereal and squash and had JUST fallen asleep when i got back) and went to a book reading by myself. such an alien thing to do - felt so alien to be driving at night without any little face to look for every couple of minutes in the rearview mirror, without worrying that i'm turning or braking or accelerating too hard for my wee passenger - felt so alien to be sitting in a small independent bookstore full of adults, listening to adults speak (so articulate! so poetic!) about literature and culture and american perception of the Other after september 11 and about the tribulations of trying to get published. in the car i felt so alone, not in a lonely way, just so strange to be alone, and i remembered vividly the first time i realized i wasn't alone after i found out i was pregnant, driving to work one morning.
anyway. i went to hear african-(american?) writers chris abani and doreen baingana read from their books becoming abigail and tropical fish. i went because i was in a class with doreen back in 2001 or so, a creative nonfiction workshop, and thought she was an amazing writer, and it's so cool that she was published - and random house just recently put her book out as paperback. bought it, will read it. but both were amazing writers, although whenever i interact with other writers i almost always end up wondering why people write SO much about sex and why it is so artsy and literary to do so. but, it was well done, nongratuitous, etc, so, whatever. just, tell me now, will i never make it as a writer if i don't have some sort of sex scenes in my novels? urgh.
but, God. the writers. they were funny, witty, smart people. it's like a different world. now i'm here in my pajamas and glasses. i wish i could remember what they said. especially for my writer's group tonight.
so i need to write something, now, fast. for inspiration i went to my oooooold angelfire web page, no i'm not linking it here, where i once planned to have a whole section devoted to literature, blah blah blah. this was long before blogs, by the way. i have a few poems there, stuff i wrote either in college or right after so everything's at least six or seven years old and up to 12 years old. haven't written any poems since the first year of my marriage. but, what the heck. here's one i wrote some random time, i think probably seven years ago, around the time my brother got married - no, it was after, so six to seven years ago. because it was after a late evening trip i took with him and my bhabhi to the beach at wilmington - i remember, clearly, the exhilaration of praying maghrib with my sister-in-law out loud on the beach, and then tripping in the sand as we walked after nightfall. but that's not what i wrote about... the poem doesn't mean anything, it's not like koonj's poems.
musa has managed to pull a book out of the bookshelf and yank off its cover. which he is now gleefully eating. stephen king's "on writing". ain't it strange? i never bought this book - it came in the mail to me a couple of years ago through amazon.com, but i have absolutely no idea at all who sent it to me. not a clue. but it's a great book. so thank you whoever it was. here's the poem...
at the feet of the sleeping continent,
two darknesses merged in silence:
sleepless ocean/wakeful sky,
mirroring restless obscurities.
moonless blackness starred with grace,
watching tossing seas of pearled unconscious
reach loving arms to treacherous sands
and withdraw, falling short every time...
near and far are vague and dark --
unseen earth, and water melds with heaven
on the horizon -- but here, at the shore,
the broken reach of the sea
crashes luminous and jewelled at my feet.
posted by Ayesha | 11:06 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home